Mythic Press
Created & Written by Michael Phoenix
Illustrated by Christian Paris
Coloured by Stefano Valentini
Lettered by Rob Jones
In the year 2045, the Earth and its destiny are no longer controlled by its inhabitants and their leaders. For over a decade the once great superhero “The Sentinel” has ruled the Earth whilst steering the fate of nations and governments as he sees fit. Many have resigned themselves to his dominion yet always do some conspire to recover the control of humanity they once had and the power and status it affords. Now, today, a final desperate plan is set in motion, the time has finally come to challenge the rule of self-made deities, to rise up and throw off the shackles of tyranny. But the future of mankind now lies not in its own hands, but instead, it falls to be decided once and for all by Gods of Men…
I do love the fact that for whatever reason people find me, ask me to look at their work and send me pdf’s for review. Otherwise I’m not so certain that I’d have found this one at all. Really the idea behind this story isn’t unusual at all, we’ve always wondered what would happen if the world’s greatest hero decided that we weren’t fit to govern ourselves any further. Heck the industry has made different dimensional Earths just to explore what would happen in many different iterations of the same theme. Here without someone to stop him The Sentinel has taken over and while we’ve missed all that we do get to see the moment when humanity has decided to rise up and make one last ditch effort to reclaim their world.
For a kickstarter book done by an amateur writer just getting his feet wet this is actually extremely well done. The story follows a very direct line as we see the Sentinel upon a throne of his making on the moon. There he sits and waits, waiting for keywords that will cause him to stir into action. War, that’s the trigger word he was looking for and he found it so the story and the action begin in earnest.
If there’s one thing you can immediately infer from reading this is both the determination and arrogance of mankind. Men will always seek power and ways to attain it and in this case that means doing whatever they deem necessary to rid themselves of The Sentinel. I was actually very taken with the depiction of people here, their willingness to lay down their lives in the attempt to reclaim rule over their world as those who pulled the strings watched from a safe distance. I felt it very apropos that those who desired that power for themselves were the ones so far from the action willing to throw wolves to the lion instead of taking being amidst the carnage themselves. There lies the arrogance of man and its not just noticeable but expected too. For we’ve not reached a point in our maturation as a species where we no longer have that need to dominate our will over others.
The interior artwork here by Christian are nice. You can tell he’s an artist and probably has more experience with pin-up style work and this foray into this level of storytelling is somewhat new to him. I say this because not all pages show the same level of quality work, there are little things in the faces and facial structures that change more than they should. Still overall it’s an impressive debut to me of his work. The attention to detail is fantastic and the way he uses page layouts through angles and perspective are well done. I’m also a big fan of the fact that he uses backgrounds as he does for they really expand the scope of the storytelling here.
I’ve always said a good strong story will make you think beyond what is seen on the pages. That certainly applies here for me since I go beyond what is here and see, think and project what I know of man and mankind and how our own world would react to such an occurrence. Michael has managed to not only bring a scenario about that people inherently want to see but he’s also gone and made for us the occasion to see it unfold and make the readers own mind become part of the story.
The way this issue ends isn’t something I was expecting though to be brutally honest I probably should have. It seems like the most likely solution but then again how this come to pass is something that begs further attention. It’s that hook which makes us want to come back and see how it plays out, not that the book needed another hook but then again one can never have too many reason to want to see a story unfold before them.
Yet again here is one more reason why these indie or self-published books need your support and to be read. There’s an excitement in these pages brought out by folks doing this with a passion for the medium.
To get yours and find out how you can support further issues you head over here.
http://www.michaelphoenix.co.uk/